Someone just told me the most popular posts about books start with a number of books you must read, hence the title and I hope it’s true!

We recently updated a number of children’s booklists and I had the pleasure of updating the mysteries list. This meant I read some titles I have been dying to read andalso that I learned of others from my well-read colleagues; as with most things library booklists are a collaborative effort. Keeping the list to five will be practically impossible. But starting with a series helps.

If you have not yet read the Enola Holmes series by Nancy Springer treat yourself by starting with the first book in the five book series, The Case of the Missing Marquess. Enola, alone spelt backwards, is the very much younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. In this first book mother goes missing on Enola’s 14th birthday and Enola feels it is her job to decipher the ciphers her mother left and find her. But her big brothers have other ideas and boarding school for Enola is at the top of the list, so Enola disguises herself, leaves home for London and starts to search for her mother. While looking for her mother Enola gets involved in finding another disappeared lady, the Marquess, who has been kidnapped! Much like her brothers, Enola, is intelligent and a keen-eyed observer who manages to find the Marquess, contact her mother and evade her brothers.

The Trouble with Chickens: A J.J.Tully Mystery by Doreen Cronin
A mystery for the younger set and the first in a series, J.J. is a former rescue dog who is now enjoying his well-deserved retirement until Dirt and Sugar, two little chicks, come by with Mooshie, their mama, who has a kidnapping to report. Sounds like J.J. might need to check on the comings and goings of one Vince the Funnel…

Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham
Yes the same John Grisham who writes for adults is now writing law procedurals for kids! Theo is 13 years-old and considers himself something of a lawyer for the kids at his school and is enjoying it all until he learns something in confidence, so he can’t say anything, but the murderer just might walk away from it all if Theo doesn’t talk. First in a series.

Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket
This is the first book in a new series titled All the Wrong Questions. Here we meet one Lemony Snicket, as he begins his career in detection, looking for an heirloom in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. Like Lemony, we too, are probably asking all the wrong questions but the answers are interesting if not particularly illuminating and they leave us hanging – waiting for the next in the series.

Pie by Sarah Weeks
Alice loves her Aunt Polly even more than she loves Aunt Polly’s award winning pies but like the rest of the town she is left wondering, when her aunt dies, why Aunt Polly would leave her famous pie crust recipe to her cat Lardo? Everyone in town wants to be the next award winning pie baker, so when someone breaks into the defunct pie shop and then Lardo disappears Alice knows she must do something. With the help of her friend Charlie, Alice finds what she is looking for and in the process discovers there are things of even more importance than pie!